It's significant that a report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) outlining the extent of discrimination against same-sex couples in Australian law has been released just days after the Congress of strife-torn, Catholic Colombia agreed to allow same-sex couples many of the spousal rights and entitlements currently denied them in Australia.
This coincidence highlights the fact that Australia has fallen well behind other Western nations and not a few places in South America and Eastern Europe, when it comes to fair legal treatment for same-sex couples.